Sara took a lesson today on Peanut and we worked on lateral work (she needed confirmation of the aids). I taught her how to influence his straightness by asking him to move over off of the right leg. We worked on making it clear to Peanut when a rider asks "over" or "forward" with the whip. Whip tickling on the hip means "over" while whip behind the leg means "over".
We worked on driveway work at the end and tied the lateral work into the gait improvement work. Peanut needs more right leg, left seat and slight touches of the whip to keep him straight. Once straight, his gait smooths out, his head-wag really starts and he racks on. Sara has really only ridden his flatwalk, so the faster gait was a new experience. She was working injured, though, so she could not quite apply the aides as uniformly as she wanted to. Because of this, she got to practice a one-rein stop when Peanut decided to canter instead of gait :-) Overall, though, a great learning experience for Sara as she was really starting to react to Peanut's shifting balance in the gait and guide him more effectively.
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